


The Auctioneer of Parting

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Angst, F/M, Gen, Romance, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:44:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7439884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Allan Pinkerton tips his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Auctioneer of Parting

“What’s the meaning of this?” Jed exclaimed. He was in full uniform, brass buttons polished, dark blue wool coat freshly brushed. Mary noticed, incidentally, that he had managed a knife-edge crease in his trousers, something she hadn’t seen at Mansion House for months, on any of the men. She was usually glad when they left off their bloody aprons before doing rounds on the wards, though Hale shared the general surgeon’s pride in the arterial spatter; that red was the only color he wore most days. In the half-light of the late November afternoon, she saw more grey at Jedediah’s temples and in his beard; he looked every inch the Union officer and though she heard the anger and the question in his voice, his face was not flushed and he stood steady and tall, unruffled and a little imperious.

“Eh, I was wondering when you’d arrive, Foster,” Major Pinkerton said. He was quite close to her, closer than she would have preferred, and she could smell the mustiness of his own coat, which needed laundering. His Scottish burr was evident now and his blue eyes were glacial.

“Captain Foster,” Jed corrected the other man. 

“Well then, Captain Foster. Or would you rather Dr. Foster? I understand you don’t follow military protocol overmuch here at Mansion House. For that’s the only explanation I can see for treating the enemy right beside these Union soldiers, using valuable resources to help Rebels survive,” Pinkerton replied. 

“This is a hospital and we treat ill patients. I don’t interrogate boys as they’re hemorrhaging in front of me about what they did before they came in the door—it’s not a very effective way to ensure the patient’s survival. And I find the blood is much the same, no matter the sentiments and ideals of the heart that is pumping it out onto the floorboards at my feet,” Jed said. 

Mary remembered a similar statement about how the hospital was to be run when she first arrived. She still had misgivings, mostly at night, when she heard again in her memory the foul words some of the Confederate men uttered in their delirium, or when she thought of Aurelia and how she had looked upon the floor, broken apart by her own hand. Could men change? Only the living, she supposed, and so she wiped brows and held cups of water to thirsty patients and found a way to stretch the stew.

“Major Pinkerton, I must ask you again, what is going on here? I looked for Mar—for the Head Nurse and all I was told was that you had taken her to the library. Why is our Head Nurse being questioned, and without any other member of the staff present?” Jed asked. Mary wished to take a step back from the Scotsman at her side but she knew she could not show any trepidation or even the slightest unease. The man was looking and she thought he was used to finding what he sought, more than other men.

“Captain Foster, I think you know this, but let me remind you—I’m the head of Union intelligence and this hospital, this Mansion House, stinks to high heaven of intrigue, even more than gangrene and well I know the reek of both. Your steward was found knifed in the back during a reception for the president. A high-ranking officer was found dead in his bed of a curable illness and a Confederate soldier escaped, both under guard. Ostensibly under guard, I might say. So, I’ll question whom I please, how and when I please, since that’s my charge from President Lincoln himself,” Pinkerton said, gruff and clearly unused to the challenge Jed presented.

“I hardly see what you will glean from our Head Nurse—anyone will tell you, she’s the most ardent Abolitionist in the place, not likely to be the confidante of a spy,” Jed replied. It was a more succinct version of the very argument she had made a few minutes earlier, before Major Pinkerton had left off wheedling and taken a more threatening tone. She had had to work to avoid recoiling. He was not a man to cross and she had few allies at Mansion House or even back in Boston that could help her against a man so powerful and highly placed.

“I don’t owe you an explanation, but let me just say, I think Nurse Phinney could be very… helpful to our Cause, if only she would take an interest in the Confederate ward, especially that bonny Virginia nurse, little Miss Emma Green, isn’t it? I’m sure there’s much we could be learning about the Rebels in Alexandria and I don’t rightly care if we get the information from a man in a fever or a prattling girl in hoopskirts.” 

“But Major Pinkerton, I cannot! I cannot try to… to rifle through these boys’ memories and dreams, turn out their pockets, withhold their bread or laudanum, to gather intelligence for the Union. I cannot form a friendship with another nurse with the sole goal of exploiting her. I support the Cause with all my heart, but I cannot foul my conscience or do wrong in hopes of a greater Right,” Mary exclaimed. 

“How can you ask that of her, Major Pinkerton? To incite her to deceit and trickery, to ask her to trade her virtue for your success?” Jed added. He had stepped closer now but he was still farther than she would like and Pinkerton between them. The intelligence officer narrowed his eyes and she saw the flicker of a muscle in his cheek, above the sandy, greying beard he wore.

“How can I ask? Because I’m trying to prevent the assassination of our president! That comes before anything, even the delicate sensibilities of a widow who is more than happy to leave her home and mix with strange men, exposing herself to utter depravity and filth—but she cannot offer a little Rebel minx a cup of tea and a biscuit and ask about her well-connected family, her childhood sweetheart at the front?” Pinkerton replied. The disapproval he had for her was evident now but less affecting with Jedediah as a witness, a defense against the allegations of her impropriety.

“Lincoln is an honorable man—he’d never stand for what you ask, Pinkerton. And he’d never allow you to speak so of a gentlewoman who has put aside every comfort to tend to sick and dying Union soldiers, she has sacrificed everything… She needn’t be exposed to this, Mar—Nurse Phinney, you are dismissed,” Jed declared, nodding smartly at her as he finished. She started to move, shifted her weight to her right foot, when Pinkerton laughed. It was a dry laugh, not malicious, but without any sweetness or humor.

“Do you think you are fooling anyone, least of all me? I’m the head of Union intelligence, but the Matron of this place, the orderlies, freemen loitering in the front hall, even that wee nun with the big blue eyes, any one of them can tell you’re in love with this woman and you haven’t a care for her, though you accuse me of ‘inciting her to deceit.’ What are you doing then, laddie, a married man chasing after a pretty widow-woman, always tucked away in this alcove and that? You’re ruining her, man, and for nothing else than your own dirty pleasure.” Pinkerton paused then. Mary stood very still and kept her eyes downcast. She would not look at either man but she could hear the sharp inhalation Jed made; it sounded like truth and revelation, the gasping shock of the bright sun on eyes used to shadow.

“Nurse Phinney, there’s no way for me to force you to do anything, not to lift a finger, but you need to think clearly about why you came here and why you stay. Tisn’t only a hospital these days, this place crawls with spies and you notice them less than the fleas or the lice. People speak well enough of you now, even if you’re nowt the plain widow Miss Dix led me to expect—they say you want to free the slaves, you’re strong for the Union, a fine nurse. Don’t lose sight of that and don’t squander the goodwill you have.” Pinkerton turned to face Jed squarely.

“And Foster, you ought to think about how an Executive Officer needs to act in a Union hospital, what hangs in the balance. I’ll leave you now to think on it, the War and what will come of it. There’s always an afterwards,” he finished. There was not disgust in his voice so much but he found them both wanting. Pinkerton never lost sight of his goal even as he managed to leave them exposed, bare to each other as they had not been before. He left the room and the door closed after him.

Mary reached over to rest her hand on the high back of an armchair. The encounter seemed like a dream, except it had the inexact blur of reality, not a dream’s enameled vividness. She wanted to sit down, to walk out, to have someone offer her a cool glass of water, a breath of air but there was only silence. Was Jedediah a few feet away or a thousand? 

“He’s right, damn him,” Jed said. “Damn it all to hell.”

“What? Jedediah, I don’t—I can’t become some sort of spy myself, listening for whispers…” Mary began. Surely, he would avoid…

“No, not that, of course not,” Jed replied quickly. She looked straight at him and saw how he dismissed her comment, how his jaw was tight and his shoulders rigid under the blue wool.

“Then, what—you cannot believe what he said, you cannot listen to that gossip, those rumors,” she replied, trying to return to the time before, before a stranger had said aloud what she did not even whisper to the night in her solitary room.

“Is it a rumor if it is true?” he asked. Jed stepped closer to her, close enough to take her hands in his but he only stood before her.

“I--oh! If it is--” Mary repeated. She hadn’t thought he would address it so directly; she hadn’t thought or she hadn’t hoped. She wasn’t sure which she preferred because she could not let herself know.

“Oh, Mary—you know it’s the truth, I would never have chosen this… this disclosure, but you knew, you must know how I love you-- and what Pinkerton said, that is also true,” Jed exclaimed. How dark his eyes were and how intently he looked at her! She could hardly think, found words spilling from her, secret words she had not allowed herself before.

“And I… oh, I love you, Jedediah, oh so much, my dearest! With my whole heart, I’ve longed for you but I couldn’t say,” she cried softly. She had never had a moment like this, telling a man how much she loved him and then to still be standing, alone. Only the cool air of a drafty room held her in its embrace. She wanted to reach a hand toward him but she could not bear for it to drop away from him, untouched.

“‘You couldn’t say,’ but you have, haven’t you, with your actions and your looks, that glance you give me when you find me in the room, the extra minute alone after Hopkins has left. You’ve said it and I have and we mustn’t, we shouldn’t have,” Jed replied. The strain was evident in his voice, what he wanted and what he allowed himself in opposition.

“Pinkerton is right, Mary, you must see that—there’ll be talk and then worse. And you’ll bear the burden, not I, though I’m the one to blame, who is not free, trapped in this God-forsaken marriage,” he added. She had wondered whether he had ever loved his wife, what had led to their estrangement, but she discovered she did not want to know. It was better that Eliza Foster was only the vague memory of golden hair in a netted chignon and an elaborate bonnet, the jingle of the reins on the barouche that had taken her away. She was not thus to Jed and he suffered for it.

“It’s no matter, I know myself and I know you. What people say, gossip—it doesn’t trouble me,” Mary said.

“But it should and it will, Miss Dix will remove you but she won’t care if you are in disgrace as long as the hospital is not. It will follow you, all the way back to Boston, and that’s what my love will end up being to you… dishonor—a taint you cannot throw off. I can’t, I won’t have it, I won’t do that to you.” His hands were clenched in fists at his sides. His face was as closed as he could make it, but angle of his head, the tension in his mouth, these she all read easily. She had been studying him since she arrived and she was a fine scholar, not only of mathematics.

“We can’t do this, we can’t be alone in rooms anymore—you must stop giving me the first or the last of this or that. There must be complete decorum, that’s what will make the rumors dissipate,” Jed said, as if he thought aloud. She imagined doing as he said and it felt very correct and very bleak.

“Even that may not be enough and it will… hurt, to be cut off from you,” she tried.

“It must be enough, Mary,” he replied flatly. 

She thought of what it had been like before, to lose the man she loved; those long mornings after Gustav died when she couldn’t think enough to read or sew, to sit in the empty parlor and watch the aimless dust in the air. She remembered waking from nights when she had forgotten he was dead and the weight of it upon her chest, rising in her throat with the pale dawn. She considered what she had regretted most.

“Kiss me goodbye, then. Just once,” she said. Jedediah had not wanted his wife in the end so he did not know how it would feel afterwards, but she did. They would each regret the embrace less than its absence.

“Is that wise?” he asked, his voice softer than it had been.

“Jedediah,” she said. Only his name—a request, a command, a plea; she wanted to feel it in her mouth before she felt his lips.

Jed moved to her then and took her face in his hands; his thumbs stroked against her cheekbones. And then she was in his arms completely and his mouth was on hers, his beard a little rough against her chin. He shifted one hand to the back of her head, to hold her against him, and the other was at her waist. His lips were soft and warm, more careful than she had imagined in the second before he had agreed. It was not enough. She opened her mouth against his and tasted him; had he been waiting for that? For then his kiss became a demand, one she was eager to answer. The heat that was there, so delicious, transfixing her, began to pour throughout her, racing to her fingertips and heels. It reflected deep within, to the hidden places she had behind her heart, in her belly, where her hips joined her thighs. She was breathless and it was all she could do to borrow his. She reached for him to be closer, pressed against him as tightly as she could—her breasts were flush against his polished buttons. She parted her legs for him as she had her lips, to let him in as much as her petticoats allowed.

Was it one kiss, as she’d asked, or a hundred? His teeth grazed her bottom lip and she heard the soft moan come from her. He anchored her and set her adrift, he measured her with his mouth at her neck, the beat of her heart beneath her ear. She had been married but it had never been this way before; her hunger for him was beyond wanton, she would have permitted him anything, everything he wanted but even more, she sought him in ways she hadn’t known until her hand reached, her tongue stroked. Her hips rocked against his, inviting him. Her lust was matched, in every degree, by her love for him, the flawed, complex man she longed for, trusted, and must give up. She felt his hands on her ribs, sleek along her bodice to her waist; one reached to caress her breast and she would have stumbled a bit with the surge it drew from her save that he had her so tightly against him. His mouth was on hers again, irresistible; desire seemed to prevent any thought. Her mind was an empty white beach other than “more” and “love” and “him” like coiled shells upon the shore. She wound her arms around his neck and let her head fall back so he could kiss her throat. She gasped,

“Jedediah!”

He spoke into her ear then, the tickle of his whiskers unbalancing her. 

“Christ, Molly! You, you are—I love you, my darling, I’m in love with you, it’s never been like this… I want, oh! My dearest, my sweet Molly! You’re so beautiful, so lovely, you, you… undo me, the feel of your skin, I wish, I wish I could keep you… How will I ever let you go?” 

Mary felt her heart beat, a great thud like an iron bell, struck once, twice. Jed’s voice was so low she could not have heard him, except his mouth was against her neck and she closed her eyes to listen.

“Why couldn’t I have married you? Too late, I’m too late… I love you, I have to let you go from me, Molly.”

Mary let her head drop back and then down, onto his shoulder. The wool was scratchy against her cheek as his beard had not been and though he still held her in his arms, she felt how he was removing himself from her. She did not want to weep but she felt cold, a desolate cold where she had only just a moment ago been lush and warm and beloved. His hands were on her back, light and unmoving, the barest touch. She lifted her head and stood back; his hands dropped down. She was alone, again, though she could still feel where his hands had been, where she wanted them to return.

“Must you? Let me go?” she asked.

“God, I don’t see how we can go on like this. To love you so, to be loved so and to resist, every day… or to risk everything, and for what? I cannot marry you, Mary, and that is all I want to do. I don’t want to take you as my mistress but I am not free,” Jed replied. His cheeks were pink above his dark beard, his hair tousled. A part of her reminded the rest, “this is how he looks after he has been kissing you, this is the Jedediah who loves you.”

“Then there is nothing for it,” she said. She said it but she couldn’t believe it.

“I cannot wish my wife dead, I do not—Christ, I only wish to be free of her but how can I ask her to release me from a vow? What good is my word, then? I made her a promise and that is who you love, that man, already weak enough… If I ask her for a divorce, I can’t think you will want me anymore,” he said. He’d grimaced when he spoke of Eliza’s death and she had felt a little relief but now he was entangled again with his honor and his promises, his ideals a tarnished silver, hers, in comparison, a bright beaten gold. 

How she rued the night she had so staunchly announced “I know right from wrong!” For that was the Molly he loved, that firm, virtuous, forthright woman and she found that perhaps that woman was not Mary von Olnhausen anymore. She had lived through so many deaths, so much suffering, even Jedediah’s as she drew the morphine from him, and now she was not so certain. Or rather, she was certain, but about fewer things. That the slaves should be freed and as quickly as possible, that God wanted Abolition and emancipation, that a boy’s last thought was always for the woman he loved best, his mother or his wife. But promises and vows, laws and principles? Suffering should be tended to and love was valuable, more so than honor or truth or bravery; those were bedrock. She loved Jedediah too much to risk losing his affection if he knew everything in her heart, what cargo she would toss overboard to keep him. She loved him and she must do what she could to reduce his misery; for now, that meant finding a way to accept the distance he thought necessary. 

He was a surgeon and he was used to determining which man was worth the operation, who should be passed over but she was a nurse and she had seen vigorous men die the hour before the surgery was scheduled and others return, dragging themselves from Lethe’s bank with dry lips. She had studied mathematics more than anyone she knew, save the tutor her father had brought her from Harvard College for a summer. No one had solved Fermat’s conjecture, she knew, the integers were too wily, the primes too austere, but that did not mean it would remain unproven. Someone, someday, their mind touched by God’s grace, would write the lines that solved it, clean as the crack of an eggshell against the bowl’s rim, or the way the yellow morning glory opened its petals, so subtly. 

“All right, Jedediah. We will be friends, nothing more, nothing improper. There will not be a whisper on the wards, not cause for one sly glance from the rudest soldier. I will love you so quietly none shall know, except you and God, and neither one of you will speak out of turn. You may do the same and I will understand what you mean,” she said calmly, using her Head Nurse’s tone. 

Jed did not look so broken now. He was hurt, yes, but it was not the destruction of a full severance nor the insidious cancer that adultery would grow within them both. He tended to be volatile, even without the needle, joyful then melancholy, fierce and droll and nurturing in turns. She was the steadier and her faith in God and His plans was tightly woven with her hopeful nature, her patience and her determination. She would wait and pray, she would ask Henry Hopkins to play chess with Jed and bring them both hot coffee as the sleet rapped at the windows. She would write what she could not say now in a German cipher and expect one day to hand Jed the key with the letters tied up with a pale blue ribbon. Pinkerton only cared for disguise and surveillance; her secrets would be safe.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about Season 2 and what it may hold and obviously Allan Pinkerton's character lends itself to exploring the espionage at Mansion House-- I thought it would be interesting to consider what else he might unearth. I also wanted to write a story with a more romantically dramatic moment, a little less languorous than some of my other stories, and to see if I could make the dialogue a little brisker. And then, it's always a conundrum to figure out how to get Mary and Jed to a happy relationship they can be honest about, so here is one more solution of sorts.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson though I don't see this as part of the Daffodil universe.
> 
> Fermat’s last theorem was first conjectured by Pierre de Fermat in 1637 in the margin of a copy of Arithmetica where he claimed he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin. The first successful proof was released in 1994 by Andrew Wiles, and formally published in 1995, after 358 years of effort by mathematicians. The unsolved problem stimulated the development of algebraic number theory in the 19th century and the proof of the modularity theorem in the 20th century. It is among the most notable theorems in the history of mathematics and prior to its proof, it was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "most difficult mathematical problem", one of the reasons being that it has the largest number of unsuccessful proofs.
> 
> In Greek mythology, Lethe /ˈliːθi/ (Greek: Λήθη, Lḗthē; Ancient Greek: [lɛ́:tʰɛː], Modern Greek: [ˈliθi]) was one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness.
> 
> Allan J. Pinkerton (25 August 1819 – 1 July 1884) was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Prior to the war, he developed several investigative techniques we still use today. Among them are "shadowing" (surveillance of a suspect) and "assuming a role" (undercover work). When the Civil War began, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service during the first two years, foiling an assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington, D.C. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton served on several undercover missions as a Union soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen.


End file.
